GENERAL GARFIELD 




A3 A 



STATESMAN AND ORATOR. 



PARAGRAPHS FROM HIS SPEECHES /:V COA'GRESS 
AND ON THE STL'MP. 



NEW YORK: 

Published bv thp: National Republican Committee. 

iSSo. 



GENERAL GARFIELD 

n 



AS A 



STATESMAN AND ORATOR. 



PARAGRAPHS FROM HIS SPEECHES IiV CONGRESS 
AND ON THE STUMP. 



3 
•> > ) 



NEW YORK : - 
Published by the National Republican Committee. 

iSSo. 






" Tile man ^iio wants to serve liis country 
must put himself in the line of its leading 
thought, and that is, the restoration of business, 
trade, commerce, industry, sound political 
economy, hard mone3% and honest pa3anent of 
all obligations, and the man who can add any- 
thing in the direction of the accomplishment of 
any of these piirposes is a public benefactor." 

JAMES A. GARFIELD. 



West. Bes. Hist. Soc. 
1915 



PARAGRAPHS 



FROM 



General Garmelds Speeches. 



-•^^ •- 



THE DEATH OF SLAVERY. 

[From a Speech in the House, Jan. 13, 1865, on the Constitutional Amendment 

to abolish slavery.] 

We shall never know why slavery dies so hard in this Republic 
and in this hall until we know why sin has such longevity and Satan 
is immortal. With marvellous tenacity of existence, it has outlived 
the expectations of its friends and the hopes of its enemies. It has 
been declared here and elsewhere to be in all the several stages of 
mortality — wounded, moribund, dead. The question was raised 
by my colleague (Mr. Cox) yesterday, whether it was indeed dead 
or only in a troubled sleep. I know of no better illustration of its 
condition than is found in Sallust's admirable history of the great 
conspirator, Catiline, who when his final battle was fought and lost, 
his army broken and scattered, was found far in advance of his own 
troops, lying among the dead enemies of Rome, yet breathing a 
little, but exhibiting in his countenance all that ferocity of spirit 
which had characterized his life. So, sir, this body of slavery lies 
before us among the dead enemies, of the Republic, mortally 
wounded, impotent in its fiendish wickedness, but with its old 
ferocity of look, bearing the unmistakable marks of its infernal 
origin. 

Who does not remember that thirty years ago — a short period in 
the life of a nation — but little could be said with impunity in these 
halls on the subject of slavery ? How well do gentlemen here re- 
member the history of that distinguished predecessor of mine, 
Joshua R. Giddings, lately gone to his rest, who, with his forlorn 
hope of faithful men, took his life in his hand, and in the name of 
justice protested against the great crime, and who stood bravely in 



4 GENERAL GARFIELD. 

his place until his white locks, like the plume of Henry of Navarre, 
marked where the battle for freedom raged fiercest ! 

We can hardly realize that this is the same people, and these the 
same halls, where now scarcely a man can be found who will ven- 
ture to do more than falter out an apology for slavery, protesting 
in the same breath that he has no love for the dying tyrant. None 
I believe, but that man of supernal boldness from the City of New 
York (Mr. Fernando Wood), has ventured this session to raise his 
voice in favor of slavery for its own sake. He still sees in its feat- 
ures the reflection of beauty and divinity, and only he. *' How art 
thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning ! How art 
thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations !" 

Many mighty men have been slain by thee, many proud ones 
have humbled themselves at thy feet ! All along the coast of our 
political sea these victims of slavery lie like stranded wrecks, broken 
on the headlands of freedom. How lately did its advocates, with 
impious boldness, maintain it as God's own, to be venerated and 
cherished as divine ! It was another and higher form of civiliza- 
tion. It was the holy Evangel of America dispensing its mercies 
to a benighted race, and destined to bear countless blessings to the 
wilderness of the West. In its mad arrogance it lifted its hand to 
strike down the fabric of the Union, and since that fatal day it has 
been a *' fugitive and a vagabond on the earth." Like the spirit 
Jesus cast out, it has since then been " seeking rest and finding 
none." 

It has sought in all the corners of the Republic to find some hid- 
ing place in which to shelter itself from the death it so richly de- 
serves. 

It sought an asylum in the untrodden Territories of the West, but 
with a whip of scorpions indignant freemen drove it thence. I do 
not believe that a loyal man can now be found who would consent 
that it should again enter them. It has no hope of harbor there. 
It found no protection or favor in the hearts or consciences of the 
freemen of the Republic, and has fled for its last hope of safety 
behind the shield of the Constitution. We propose to follow it 
there, and drive it thence as Satan was exiled from heaven. 



SUPREMACY OF THE CIVIL LAW. 

[From an Argument made in the Sujjreme Court, March 6, 1866, in the Indiana 

Conspiracy Case.] 

Your decision will mark an era in American history. The just 
and final settlement of this great question will take a high place 
among the great achievements which have immortalized this decade. 



PARAGRAPHS FROM SPEECHES. 5 

It will establish forever this truth, of inestimable value to us and to 
mankind, that a Republic can wield the vast enginery of war 
without breaking down the safeguards of liberty ; can suppress in- 
surrection and put down rebellion, however formidable, without 
destroying the bulwarks of law ; can by the might of its armed mill- 
ions preserve and defend both nationality and liberty. Victories 
on the field were of priceless value, for they plucked the life of the 
Republic out of the hands of its enemies ; but 

" Peace hath her victories 

No less renowned than war ;" 

and if the protection of law shall, by your decision, be extended 
over every acre of our peaceful territory, you will have rendered 
the great decision of the century. 

When Pericles had made Greece immortal in arts and arms, in 
liberty and law, he invoked the genius of Phidias to devise a monu- 
ment which should symbolize the beauty and glory of Athens. That 
artist selected for his theme the tutelar divinity of Athens, the Jove- 
born goddess, protectress of arts and arms, of industry and law, who 
typified the Greek conception of composed, majestic, unrelenting 

force. 

He erected on the heights of the Acropolis a colossal statue ot 
Minerva, armed with spear and helmet, which towered in awful 
majesty above the surrounding temples of the gods. Sailors on 
far-off ships beheld the crest and spear of the goddess and bowed 
Avith reverent awe. To every Greek she was the symbol of power 
and glory. But the Acropolis, with its temples and statues is now 
a heap of ruins. The visible gods have vanished in the clearer light 
of modern civilization. We cannot restore the decayed emblems of 
ancient Greece ; but it is in your power, O judges, to erect in this 
citadel of our liberties a monument more lasting than brass ; invisi- 
ble indeed to the eye of flesh, but visible to the eye of the spirit as 
the awful form and figure of justice, crowning and adorning the 
Republic ; rising above the storms of political strife, above the din 
of battle, above the earthquake shock of rebellion ; seen from afar 
and hailed as protector by the oppressed of all nations ; dispensing 
equal blessings, and covering with the protecting sheld of law the 
weakest, the humblest, the meanest, and, until declared by solemn 
law unworthy of protection, the guiltiest of its citizens. 



RESTORATION OF THE REBEL STATES. 

[From a Speech in the House of Representatives, Feb, i, 1866.I 

And first, we must recognize in all our action the stupendous facts 
of the war. ' In the very crisis of our fate God brought us face to 



6 GENERAL GARFIELD. 

face with the alarming truth that we must lose our own freedom or 
grant it to the slave. In the extremity of our distress we called 
upon the black man to help us save the Republic, and amid the 
very thunder of battle we made a covenant with him, sealed both 
with his blood and ours, and witnessed by Jehovah, that when the 
nation was redeemed he should be free and share with us the glories 
and blessings of freedom. In the solemn words ofthe great proc- 
lamation of emancipation, we not only declared the slaves forever 
free, but we pledged the faith of ihe nation " to maintain their free- 
dom" — mark the words, " to maintain their.freedoDiJ''' The omnis- 
cient witness will appear in judgment against us if we do not fulfil 
that covenant. Have we done it ? Have we given freedom to the 
black man ? What is freedom ? Is it a mere negation — the bare 
privilege of not being chained, bought and sold, branded and 
scourged ? If this be all, then freedom is a bitter mockery, a cruel 
delusion, and it may well be questioned whether slavery were not 
better. 

But liberty is no negation. It is a substantive, tangible reality. 
It is the realization of those imperishable truths of the Declaration 
" that all men are created equal," that the sanction of all just gov- 
ernment is " the consent of the governed." Can these truths be 
realized until each man has a right be to heard on all matters relat- 
ing to himself ? 

Mr. Speaker, we did more than merely to break off the chains of 
the slaves. The abolition of slavery added four million citizens to 
the Republic. By the decision of the Supreme Court, by the de- 
cision of the Attorney-General, by the decision of all the depart- 
ments of our Government, those men made free are, by the act of 
freedom, made citizens. As another has said, they must be ' ' four mil 
lion disfranchised, disarmed, untaught, landless, thriftless, non-pro- 
ducing, non-consuming, degraded men, or four million land-holding, 
industrious, arms-bearing, and voting population. Choose between 
the two !" 

Mr. Speaker, let us learn a lesson from the dealing of God with 
the Jewish nation. When his chosen people, led by the pillar of 
cloud and fire, had crossed the Red Sea and traversed the gloomy 
wilderness with its thundering Sinai, its bloody battles, disastrous 
defeats, and glorious victories ; when near the end of their perilous 
pilgrimage they listened to the last words of blessing and warning 
from their great leader before he was buried with immortal honors 
by the angel of the Lord ; when at last the victorious host, sadly 
joyful, stood on the banks of the Jordan, their enemies drowned in 
the sea or slain in the wilderness, they paused and made solemn 
preparation to pass over and possess the land of promise. By the 
command of God, given through Moses and enforced by his great 
successor, the ark of the covenant, containing the tables of the law 



PARAGRAPHS FROM SPEECHES, 7 

• 

and the sacred memorials of their pilgrimage, was borne by chosen 
men two thousand cubits in advance of the people. On the further 
shore stood Ebal and Gerizim, the mounts of cursing and blessing, 
from which, in the hearing of all the people, were pronounced the 
curses of God against injustice and disobedience, and his blessing 
upon justice and obedience. On the shore, between the mountains 
and in the midsl. of the people, a monument was eiected, and on it 
were written the words of the law, " to be a memorial unto the chil- 
dren of Israel forever and ever." Let us learn wisdom from this 
illustrious example. We have passed the Red Sea of slaughter ; 
our garments are yet wet with its crimson spray. We have crossed 
the fearful wilderness of war, and have led our four hundred thou- 
sand heroes to sleep beside the dead enemies of the Republic. We 
have heard the voice of God amid the thunders of battle command- 
ing us to wash our hands of iniquity, to " proclaim liberty through- 
out all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof." When we spurned 
his counsels we were defeated, and the gulfs of ruin yawned before 
us. When we obeyed his voice, he gave us victory. And now 
at last we have reached the confines of the wilderness. Before us 
is the land of promise, the land of hope, the land of peace, filled 
with possibilities of greatness and glory too vast for the grasp of the 
imagination. Are we worthy to enter it ? On what condition may 
it be ours to enjoy and transmit to our children's children ? Let us 
pause and make deliberate and solemn preparation. Let us, as 
representatives of the people, whose servants we are, bear in 
advance the sacred ark of republican liberty, with its tables of the 
law inscribed with the " irreversible guaranties" of liberty. Let 
us here build a monument on which shall be written not only the 
curses of the law against treason, disloyalty, and oppression, but 
also an everlasting covenant of peace and blessing with loyalty, 
liberty, and obedience ; and all the people will say, Amen. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 



[Remarks at the Memorial Services in the House of Representatives, 

April 14, 1865.] 

It was no one man who killed Abraham Lincoln ; it was the em- 
bodied spirit of treason and slavery, inspired with fearful and 
despairing hate, that struck him down, in the moment of the nation's 
suprcmest joy. 

Sir, there are times in the history of men and nations when they 
stand so near the veil that separates mortals and immortals, time 
from eternity, and m,en from their God, that they can almost hear 
the beatings and feel the pulsations of the heart of the Infinite. 



8 GENERAL GARFIELD. 

Through such a time has this nation passed. - When two hundred 
and fifty thousand brave spirits passed from the field of honor, 
through, that thin veil, to the presence of God, and when at last 
its parting folds admitted the martyr President to the com- 
pany of these dead heroes of the Republic, the nation stood so near 
the veil that the whispers of God were heard by the children of men. 
Awe stricken by his voice, the American people knelt in tearful 
reverence and made a solemn covenant vn\\v him and with each 
other, that this nation should be saved from Its enemies, that all its 
glories should be restored, and on the ruins of slavery and treason 
the temples of justice and freedom should be built and should sur- 
vive forever. 

It remains for us, consecrated by that great event and under a 
covenant wilh God, to keep that faith, to go forward in the great 
work until it shall be completed. Following the lead of that great 
man, and obeying the higher behests of God, let us remember that 

" He has sounded forth a trumpet that shall never call retreat : 
He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment seat. 
Be swift my soul to answer Him, be jubilant my feet ; 
For God is marching on." 



PUBLIC DEBT AND SPECIE PAYMENTS. 

[From a Speech in the House of Representatives, March i6, 1866.] 

I PROPOSE, sir, to let the House take the responsibility of adopt- 
ing or rejecting this measure. On the one side it is proposed to 
return to solid and honest values ; on the other, to float on the 
boundless and shoreless sea ot paper money, with all its dishonesty 
and broken pledges. We leave it to the House to decide which 
alternative it will choose. Choose the one, and you float away into 
an unknown sea of paper money that shall know no decrease until 
you take just such a measure as is now proposed to bring us back 
again to solid values. Delay the measure, and it will cost the 
country dear. Adopt it now, and with a little depression in busi- 
ness and a little strigency in the money market the worst will be 
over, and we shall have reached the solid earth. Sooner or later 
such a measure must be adopted. Go on as you are now going on, 
and a financial crisis worse than that of 1837 will bring us to the 
bottom. I for one am unwilling that my name shall be linked to 
the fate of a paper currency. I believe that any party which com- 
mits itself to paper money will go down amid the general disaster, " 
covered with the curses of a ruined people. 



PARAGRAPHS FROM SPEECHES. g 

Mr, Speaker, I remember that on the monument of Queen Eliza- 
beth, where \1kr glories were recited and her honors 'summed up, 
among the last and the highest, recorded as the climax of her 
honors, was this—that she had restored the money of her king- 
dom to Its just value. And when this House shall have done its 
work, when it shall have brought back values to their proper stand- 
ard, it will deserve a monument. 



A NATIONAL BUREAU OF EDUCATION. 

[From a Speech in the House of Representatives, June 8, 1866.] 

When the history of the Thirty-ninth Congress is written it will 
be recorded that two great ideas inspired it, and made their impress 
upon all its efforts, viz., to build up free States on the ruins of 
slavery, and to extend to every inhabitant of the United States the 
rights and privileges of citizenship. 

Before the divine Architect builded order out of chaos, he said, 
" Let there be light." Shall we commit the fatal mistake of building 
up free States without first expelling the darkness in which slavery 
had shrouded their people ? Shall we enlarge the boundaries of 
citizenship and make no provision to increase the intelligence of the 
citizen ? I share most fully in the aspirations of this Congress, 
and give my most cordial support to its policy ; but I believe its 
work will prove a disastrous failure unless it makes the schoolmas- 
ter its ally, and aids him in preparing the children of the United 
States to perfect the work now begun. 

The stork is a sacred bird in Holland, and is protected by her 
laws, because it destroys those insects which would undermine the 
dikes and let the sea again overwhelm the rich fields of the Nether- 
lands. Shall this Government do nothing to foster and strengthen 
those educational agencies which alone can shield the coming gen- 
eration from ignorance and vice, and make it the impregnable bul- 
wark of liberty and law ? 



REFUSAL TO RETURN FUGITIVE SLAVES. 

[From a Speech in the House of Representatives, Feb. 8, 1867.] 

I CANNOT forget that less than five years ago I received an order 
from my superior officer in the army commanding me to search my 
camp for a fugitive slave, and if found to deliver him up to a Ken- 
tucky captain, who claimed him as his property, and I had the honor 
to be perhaps the first ofliccr in the army who peremptorily refused 



10 GENERAL GARFIELD. 

to obey such an order. We were then trying to save the Union 
without hurting slavery. I remember, sir, that when we undertook 
to agitate in the army the question of putting arms into the hands 
of tlie slaves, it was said, " Such a step will be fatal ; it will alienate 
half our army and lose us Kentucky." By and by, when our neces- 
sities were imperious, we ventured to let the negroes dig in the 
trenches, but it would not do to put muskets into their hands. We 
ventured to let the negro drive a mule team, but it would not do to 
have a white man or a mulatto just in front of him, or behind him ; 
all must be negroes in that train : you must not disgrace a white 
soldier by putting him in such company. " By and by," some one 
said, " rebel guerillas may capture the mules ; so for the sake of the 
mules let us put a few muskets in the wagons, and let the negroes 
shoot the guerillas if they come." So for the sake of the mules we 
enlarged the limits of liberty a little. By and by we allowed the 
negroes to build fortifications and armed them. 



TAXATION OF UNITED STATES BONDS. 

[From a Speech in the House of Representatives, July 5, 1868.] 

There was a declaration made by an old English gentleman in 
the days of Charles the Second which does honor to human nature. 
He said he was willing, at any time, to give his life for the good 
of his country, but he would not do a mean thing to save his coun- 
try from ruin. So. sir. ought a citizen to feel in regard to our finan- 
cial affairs. The people of the United States can afford to make 
any sacrifice for their country, and the historj^ of the last war has 
proved their willingness ; but the humblest citizen cannot afford to 
do a mean or dishonorable thing to save even this glorious Republic. 

For my own part I will consent to no act of dishonor. And I 
look upon this proposition — though I cannot think the gentleman 
meant it to be so — as having in itself the very essence of dishonor. 
I shall, therefore, to the utmost of my ability, resist it. 

Mr. Speaker, I desire to say, in conclusion, that in my opinion 
all these efforts to pursue a doubtful and unusual, if not dishonora- 
ble policy in reference to our public debt, spring from a lack of 
faith in the intelligence and conscience of the American people. 
Hardly an hour passes when we do not hear it whispered that some 
such policy as this must be adopted, or the people will by and by 
repudiate the debt. For my own part I do not share that distrust. 
The people of this country have shown by the highest proofs 
human nature can give that, wherever the path of honor and duty 
inay lead, however steep and rugged it may be, they are ready to 
walk in it. They feel the burden of the public debt, but they re- 



PARAGRAPHS PROM SPEECHES, ii 

member that it is the price of blood — the precious blood of half a 
million brave men who died to save to us all that makes life desir- 
able or property secure. I believe they will, after a full hearing, 
discard all methods of payinp^ their debts by sleight of hand, or by 
any scheme which crooked wisdom may devise If public morality 
did not protest against any such plan, enlightened public selfishness 
would refuse its sanction. Let us be true to our trust a few years 
longer, and the next generation will lie here with its seventy five 
millions of population and its sixty billions of wealth To them 
the debt that then remains will be a light burden. They will pay 
the last bond according to the letter and spirit of the contract, with 
the same sense of grateful duty with which they will j)ay the pen- 
sions of the few surviving soldiers of the great war for the Union. 



THE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS. 

[From a Speech in the House of Representatives, April 4, 1871.] 

Now, Mr. Speaker, to review briefly the ground travelled over : 
The changes wrought in theConstitution by the last three amendments 
in regard to the individual rights of citizens are these : that no per- 
son within the United States shall be made a slave ; that no citizen 
shall be denied the right of suffrage because of his color or because 
he was once a slave ; that no State, by its legislation or the enforce- 
ment thereof, shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens 
of the United States ; that no State shall, without due process of 
law, disturb the life, liberty, or property of any person within its 
jurisdiction ; and finally, that no State shall deny to any person 
within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. 

Thanks to the wisdom and patriotism of the American people, 
these great and beneficent provisions are now imperishable ele- 
ments of the Constitution, and will, I trust, remain forever among 
the irreversible guaranties of liberty. 



THE TARIFF. 

[From a Speech in the House of Representatives, April i, 1570.'] 

I STAND novv where I have always stood since I have been a 
member of this House. I take the liberty of quoting, from the 
Congressional Globe of 1866. the following remarks which I then 
made on the subject of the tarifT : 



12 GENERAL GARFIELD. 

" We have seen that one extreme school of economists would 
place the price of all manufactured articles in the hands of foreign 
producers by rendering it impossible for our manufacturers to com- 
pete with them : while the other extreme school, by making it im- 
possible for the foreigner to sell his competing waies in our market, 
would give the people no immediate check upon the prices which 
our manufacturers might fix for their products. I disagree with 
both these extremes. I hold that a properly adjusted competition 
between home and foreign products is the best gauge by which to 
regulate international trade. Duties should be so high that our 
manufacturers can fairly compete with the foreign product, but not 
so high as to enable them to drive out the foreign article, enjoy a 
monopoly of the trade, and regulate the price as they please. This 
is my doctrine of protection. If Congress pursues this line of policy 
steadily, we shall, year by year, approach more nearly to the basis 
of free trade, because we shall be more nearly able to compete with 
other nations on equal terms. I am for a protection which leads to 
ultimate free trade. I am for that free trade which can only be 
achieved through a reasonable protection." 

Mr. Chairman, examining thus the possibilities of the situation, I 
believe that the true course for the friends of protection to pursue 
is to reduce the rates on imports wherever we can justly and safely 
do so, and, accepting neither of the extreme doctrines urged on this 
floor, endeavor to establish a stable policy that will commend itself 
to all patriotic and thoughtful people. 



DEMOCRATIC RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE REBELLION. 

[From a Speech in the House of Representatives, March 14, 1870.] 

My friend from Indiana (Mr. Niblack) is not himself an extreme 
partisan. But he has said some things just now which deserve an 
answer. He says that if the glory of the war belongs to the Repub- 
lican party, then the results of the war, the expenditures of the war, 
and the burdens laid upon the people in consequence of the war, 
fall also to our share. A part of this statement I indorse. But, 
Mr. Chairman, I desire to ask that gentleman and his party a ques- 
tion. Suppose that in the year 1861. every Democrat north of the 
Potomac and the Ohio had followed the lead of Grant, and Douglas, 
and Dickinson, and Tod, and all the other great lights of the Dem- 
ocratic party, had thrown away the Democratic name and said that 
they would be Democrats no longer, as we said we would be Re- 
publicans no longer, but all would be Union men, and stand to- 
gether around the flag until the tebellion had been put under our 



rARAGRAPHS FROM SPEECHES. 13 

feet. I desire to ask the gentlemen, if these things had happened, 
how long the war would have lasted, how much the war would 
have cost? I do not hesitate to say that it could not have lasted a 
month, and the expenditures of the war would never have exceeded 
$10,000,000. I say, as a mailer of current history, that it was the 
great hope of the rebels of the South that the assistance of the 
Democratic party of the North would divide our forces and over- 
come all our efforts ; that at the ballot-box the Democrats at home 
would help the cause which they were mainiaining in the field. It 
was that, and that alone, which protracted the war and created our 
innnense debt. 

I come, therefore, to the door of your party, gentlemen on the 
other side, and I lay down at your threshold every dollar of the 
debt, every item of the stupendous total which expresses the great 
cost of the war ; and I say if you had followed Douglas there would 
have been no debt, no blood, no burden. 



THE WOMAN QUESTION. 

[From an Address before the Business College, Washington, D. C, June 20, 1869.] 

Laugh at it as we may, put it aside as a jest if we will, keep it 
out of Congress or political campaigns, still, the woman question 
is rising in our horizon larger than the size of a man's hand ; and 
some solution, erelong, that question must find. I have> not yet 
committed my mind to any formula that embraces the whole ques- 
tion. I halt on the threshold of so great a problem ; but there is 
one point on which I have reached a conclusion, and that is. that 
this nation must open up new avenues of work and usefulness to 
the women of the country, so that everywhere they may have some- 
thing to do. This is. just now, infinitely more valuable to them 
than the platform or the ballot-box. Whatever conclusion shall be 
reached on that subject by and by, at present the most valuable gift 
which can be bestowed on women is something to do. which they 
can do well and worthily, and thereby maintain themselves. There- 
fore I say that every thoughtful statesman will look with satisfaction 
upon such business colleges as are opening a career for our young 
Avomen. On that score we have special rcasoh to be thankful for 
the establishment of these institutions. 



14 GENERAL GARFIELD. 

BANK-NOTES AND GREENBACKS. 

[From a Speech in the House of Representatives June 7, 1870.] 

In the first place, it is the experience of all nations, and it is the 
almost unanimous opinion of all eminent statesmen and financial 
writers, that no nation can safely undertake to supply its people with a 
paper currency issued directly by the government. And, to apply 
that principle to our own country, let me ask if gentlemen thmk it 
safe to subject any political party who may be in power in this gov- 
ernment to the great temptation of overissues of paper money in lieu 
of taxation ? In times of high political excitement, and on the eve 
of a general election, when there might be a deficiency in the rev- 
enues of the country, and Congress should find it necessary to levy 
additional taxes, the temptation would be overwhelming to supply 
the deficit by an increased issue of paper money. Thus the whole 
business of the country, the value of all contracts, the prices of all 
commodities, the wages of labor, would depend upon a vote in 
Congress. For one, I dare not trust the great industrial interests 
of this country to such uncertain and hazardous chances. 

But even if Congress and the administration should be always 
superior to such political temptations, still I affirm, in the second 
place, that no human legislature is wise enough to determine how 
much currency the wants of this country require. Test it in this 
House to-day. Let every member mark down the amount which 
he believes the business of the country requires, and who does not 
know that the amounts will vary by hundreds of millions ? 

But a third objection, stronger even than the last, is this : that 
such a currency possesses no power of adapting itself to the busi- 
ness of the country. Suppose the total issues should be five hun- 
dred millions, or seven hundred millons, or any amount you please ; 
it might be abundant for spring and summer, and yet when the 
great body of agricultural products were moving off to market in 
the fall that amount might be totally insufficient. Fix any volume 
you please, and if it be just sufficient at one period it may be re- 
dundant at another, or insufficient at another. No currency can 
meet the wants of this country unless it is founded directly upon 
the demands of business, and not upon the caprice, the ignorance, 
the political selfishness of the party in power. 

What regulates now the loans and discounts and credits of our 
national banks ? The business of the country. The amount in- 
creases or decreases, or remains stationary, as business is fluctuat- 
ing or steady. This is a natural form of exchange, based upon the 
business of the country and regulated by its changes. And when 
that happy day arrives when the vvhole volume of our currency is 
redeemable in gold at the will of the holder, and recognized by all 



I'ARACRAPHS /'ROM SPEECHES. 15 

nations as equal to money, then the whole business of banking, the 
whole volume of currency, the whole amount of credits, whether in 
the form of checks, drafts, or bills, will be rep^JhUed by the same gen- 
eral law, the business of the country. The business of the country 
is like the level of the ocean, from which all measurements are 
made of heights and depths. Though tides and currents may for a 
time disturb, and tempests vex and toss its surface, still, through 
calm and storm the grand level rules all its waves and lays its meas- 
uring-lines on every shore. So the business of the country, which, 
in the aggregated demands of the people for exchange of values, 
maiks the ebb and flow, the rise and fall of the currents of trade, 
and forms the base line from which to measure all our financial leg- 
islation, is the only safe rule by which the volume of our cur- 
rency can be determined. 



A NON-EXPORTABLE CURRENCY. 

[From a Speech in House of Representatives, June 15, 1870.] 

Could anything but a predetermined purpose to defend, main- 
tain, and increase our irredeemal:)]e paper money lead so able and 
distinguished a statesman as the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
[Mr. Kelley] to say, as he did the other day, concerning the green- 
back currency : 

" Beyond the sea, in foreign lands, it fortunately is not money ; 
but, sir, when have we had such a long and unbroken career of 
prosperity in business as since we adopted this non-exportable cur- 
rency ?" 

It is reported of an Englishman who was wrecked on a strange 
shore that, wandering along the coast, he came to a gallows with 
a victim hanging upon it. and that he fell down on his knees and 
thanked God that he at last beheld a sign of civilization. But this 
is the first time I ever heard a financial philosopher express his grati- 
tude that we have a currency of such bad repute that other nations 
will not receive it ; he is thankful that it is not exportable. We 
have a great many commodities in such a condition, that they are 
not exportable. Mouldy flour, rusty wheat, rancid butter, damaged 
cotton, addled eggs, and spoiled goods generally arc not export- 
able. But it never occurred to me to be thankful for this putres- 
cence. It is related in a quaint German book of hurtior, that the 
inhabitants of Schildcbcrg, finding that other towns, with more pub- 
lic spirit than their own, had erected gibbets wiiliin their precincts, 
resolved that the town of Schildcbcrg should also have a gallows ; 
and one patriotic member of the town council offered a resolution 



l6 GENERAL GAR EI ELD. 

that the benefits of this gallows should be reserved exclusively for 
the inhabitants of Schildeberg. 

The gentleman from Pennsylvania would reserve for our exclu- 
sive benefit all the blessings of a fluctuating, uncertain, and dishon- 
ored paper currency. In his view this irredeemable, non-exportable 
currency is so full of virtue that for the want of it California is 
falling into decay. That misguided State has seen fit to cling to 
the money that all nations receive, and ruin impends over her 
golden shores. I doubt if the business men of California will ask 
my friend to prescribe for their financial maladies. Quite in keep- 
ing with the gentleman's other opinions on this subject is the fol- 
lowing. He says " the volume of currency does not, as has often 
been asserted, regulate the price of commodities." According to 
this we have not only a non- exportable currency, but one regulated 
by some trick of magic, so as to defy the universal laws of value, 
of supply and demand, and that neither the increase or decrease of 
its volume can affect the price of commodities. Argument on such 
a doctrine is useless. 



A FIXED STANDARD OF VALUE. 

[From a Speech in the House of Representatives, April 8, 1874.] 

WlTTi what care has our government protected its standards ! 
The gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Butler] sneeringly asked. 
Why does not some one argue in favor of redeeming the yard-stick, 
the quart-pot, or the Fairbanks scales ? In that paragraph he uses 
words without significance. We do not redeem these standards, but 
we do in regard to them what is analogous to the redemption of our 
standard of value. Our yard-stick is a metallic bar copied from the 
standard yard of England, which is nearly three hundred years old. 
It is deposited in the ofl^ce of the Coast Survey, and is sacredly 
guarded from diminution or injury. The best efforts of science 
have been brought to bear to make the yard-stick as little liable as 
possible to mutilation or change. 

Two methods have been adopted by Science to test the accuracy 
of the standard and preserve it from loss. One is to find a pendu- 
lum which, swinging in 7'acuo, will make one vibration a second, at 
a given altitude from the level of the sea ; the other was a method 
adopted by France, when in the last century she sent her surveyors 
to measure six hundred miles of a meridian line, from Dunkirk to 
Barcelona. Thus she made her metre a given aliquot part of the 
earth's circumference, so that should her standard be lost the meas- 
ure of the globe itself would furnish the means of restoring it. Both 
these standards are deposited in the Coast Survey, and together 



PARAGRAniS FROM SPEECH KS. 17 

with the standard measures of capacity are furnished to ilic several 
States as the standards to which all our Stale and nuinicipal laws 
refer. Every contract for the sale and delivery of anything that can 
be weighed or measured is based upon these stanelards. and the 
citizen who changes the weight or the measurement commits a mis- 
demeanor for which he is punished by the law. The hilse weight 
and balance are still an abomination. 

Sir. we do not redeem our yard-stick ; but we preserve it, and by 
the solemn sanctions of the law demand that it shall be applied to 
all transactions where extension is an element. Let us with equal 
care restore and preserve our standard of value, which must be 
applied to every exchange of property between man and man. An 
uncertain and fluctuating standard is an evil whose magnitude is 
too vast for measurement. 



THE BATTLE OF HISTORY. 

[From a Speech in the House of Representatives, August 4, 1876. 1 

Peace from the shock of battle ; the higher peace of our streets, 
of our homes, of our equal rights, we must make secure by making 
the conquering ideas of the war everywhere dominant and perma- 
nent. With all my heart I join with the gentleman in rejoicing that 
the war-drums throb no longer and the baltle-llags are furled ; and 
I look forward with joy and hope to the day when our brave people, 
one in heart, one in their aspirations for freedom and peace, shall 
see that the darkness through which we have passed was a part of 
that stern but beneficent discipline by which the Great Disposer of 
events has been leading us on to a higher and nobler national lil'e. 

But such a result can be reached only by comprehending the 
whole meaning of the revolution through ahich we have passed 
and are still passing. I say still passing ; for I remember that after 
the battle of arms comes the battle of history. The cause that tri- 
umphs in the field does not always triumph in history. And those 
who carried the war for union and equal and universal freedom to 
a victorious issue can never safely relax their vigilance until the 
ideas for which they fought have become embodied in the enduring 
forms of individual and national life. 

Has this been done ? Not yet. I ask the gentleman, in all plain- 
ness of speech, and yet in all kindness, Ls he correct in his statement 
that the conquered party accept the results of the war? Lven if 
they do, I remind the gentleman that accept is not a very strong 
word. I go further : I ask him if the Democratic party have adopted 
the results of the war ? Is it not asking loo much of human nature 



1 8 GENERAL GARFIELD. 

to expect such unparalleled changes to be not only accepted, but 
in so short a time adopted by men of strong and independent opin- 
ions ? The antagonisms which gave rise to the war and grew out 
of it were not born in a day, nor can they vanish in a night. 



THE EVIL GENIUS OF THE SOUTH. 

[From a Speech in the House of Representatives, August 4, 1876.] 

I HOPE my public life has given proof that I do not cherish a spirit 
of malice or bitterness toward the South, Perhaps they will say I 
have no right to advise them ; but at the risk of being considered 
impertinent I will express my conviction that the bane oi the South- 
ern people, for the last twenty- five years, has been that they have 
trusted the advice of the Democratic party. The very remedy 
which the gentleman from Mississippi offers for the ills of his peo- 
ple has been and still is their bane. The Democratic party has 
been the evil genius of the South in all these years. They yielded 
their own consciences .to you on the slavery question, and led you 
to believe that the North would always yield. They made you 
believe that if we ever dared to cross the Potomac or Ohio to put 
down your rebellion, we could only do so across the dead bodies 
of many hundred thousands of Northern Democrats. They made 
you believe that the war would begin in the streets of our Northern 
cities ; that we were a community of shopkeepers, of sordid money- 
getters, and would not stand against your fiery chivalry. You 
thought us cold, slow, lethargic ; and in some respects we are. 
There are some differences between us that spring from origin and 
influences of climate — differences not unlike the description of the 
poet, that 

" Bright and fierce and fickle is the South, 

And dark and true and tender is the North" — 

differences that kept us from a good understanding. 

You thought that our coldness, our slowness, indicated a lack of 
spirit and of patriotism, and you were encouraged in that belief by 
most of the Northern Democracy ; but not by all. They warned 
you at Charleston in i860. 

And when the great hour struck there were many noble Demo- 
crats in the North who lifted the flag of the Union far above the flag 
of party ; but there was a residuum of Democracy, called in the 
slang of the time " copperheads," who were your evil genius from 
the beginning of the war till its close, and ever since. Some of 
them sat in these seats, and never rejoiced when we won a victory, 
and never grieved when we lost one. They were the men v/ho sent 



PARAGRAPHS FROM SPEECHES. 19 

your Vallandighams to give counsel and encouragement to your re- 
bellion, and to buoy you up with the false hope that at last you would 
conquer by the aid of their treachery. I honor }ou, gentlemen of 
the South, ten thousand times more than I honor such Democrats of 
the North. 



NO STEPS BACKWARD. 

[From a Speech in the House of Representatives, Aug. 4, 1876.] 

I WILL close by calling your attention again to the great problem 
before us. Over this vast horizon of interest North and South, 
above all party prejudices and personal wrong-doing, above our 
battle hosts and our victorious cause, above all that we hoped for 
and won, or you hoped for and lost, is the grand onward movement 
of the Republic to perpetuate its glory, to save liberty alive, to pre- 
serve exact and equal justice to all, to protect and foster all these- 
priceless principles, until they shall have crystallized into the form 
of enduring law, and become inwrought into the life and habits of 
our people. 

And until these great results are accomplished it is not safe to 
take one step backward. It is still more unsafe to trust interests of 
such measureless value in the hands of an organization whose mem 
bers have never comprehended their epoch, have never been in 
sympathy with its great movements, who have resisted every step 
of its progress, and whose principal function has been " To lie 
in cold obstruction" across the pathway of the nation. It is most 
unsafe of all to trust that organization, when for the first time 
since the war it puts forward for the first and second place 
of honor and command men who in our days of greatest danger 
esteemed party above country, and felt not one throb of patriotic 
ardor for the triumph of imperilled Union, but from the beginning 
to the end hated the war and hated those who carried our eagles to 
victory. No, no, gentlemen ; our enlightened and patriotic people 
will not follow such leaders in the rearward march. Their myriad 
faces are turned the other way, and along their serried lines still 
rings the cheering cry, " Forward ! till our great work is fully and 
worthily accomplished." 



20 GENERAL GARFIELD. 

REBELLION IN THE REAR. 

[From a Speech in the House of Representatives, Jan, 12, 1876.] 

And now, Mr. Speaker, I close as I began. Toward those men 
who gallantly fought on the field I cherish the kindest feeling. I 
feel a sincere reverence for the soldierly qualities they displayed on 
many a well-fought battle-field. I hope the day will come when 
their swords and ours will be crossed over many a doorway of our 
children, who will remember the glory of their ancestors v/ith pride. 
The high qualities displayed in that conflict now belong to the 
whole nation. Let them be consecrated to the Union and its future 
peace and glory. I shall hail that consecration as a pledge and 
symbol of our perpetuity. 

But there is a class of men referred to in the speech of the gentle- 
man yesterday, for whom I have never yet gained the Christian grace 
necessary to say the same thing. The gentleman said that amid 
the thunder of battle, through its dim smoke and above its roar, 
they heard a voice from this side, saying, " Brothers, come." I do 
not know whether he meant the same thing, but I heard that voice 
behind us. I heard that voice, and I recollect that I sent one of 
those who uttered it through our lines — a voice owned by~Vallan- 
digham. General Scott said, in the early days of the war, " When 
this war is over, it will require all the physical and moral power of 
the Government to restrain the rage and fury of the non-coinbatantsy 

It was that non-combatant voice behind us that cried " Halloo ?" 
to the other side ; that always gave cheer and encouragement to the 
enemy in our hour of darkness, I have never forgotten and 
have not yet forgiven those Democrats of the North whose hearts 
were not warmed by the grand inspirations of the Union, but who 
stood back finding fault, always crying disaster, rejoicing at our 
defeat, never glorying in our victory. If these are the voices the 
gentleman heard, I am sorry he is now united with those who 
uttered them. But to those most noble men, Democrats and Repub- 
licans, who together fought for the Union, I commend all the les- 
sons of charity that the wisest and most beneficent men have taught. 
I join you all in every aspiration that you may express to stay in 
this Union, to heal its wounds, to increase its glory, and to forget 
the evils and the bitternesses of the past ; but do not for the sake of 
the three hundred thousand heroic men who, maimed and bruised, 
drag out their weary lives, many of them carrying in their hearts 
horrible memories of what they suffered in the prison-pen — do not 
ask us to vote to put back into power that man who was the cause 
nf their suffering — that man still unaneled, unshrived, unforgiven, 
undefended. 



PARAGRAPHS FROM SPEECHES, 2: 



POPULAR SUFFRAGE MADE SAFE BY EDUCATION. 

[From an Address on the Future of the Republic, delivered before the Literary 

Societies of Hudson College.] 

We are apt to be deluded into false security by political catch- 
words, devised to flatter rather than instruct. We have happily 
escaped the dogma of the divine right of kings. Let us not fall into 
the equally pernicious error that multitude is divine because it is 
a multitude. The words of our great publicist, the late Dr. Lieber, 
whose faith in republican liberty was undoubted, should never be 
forgotten. In discussing the doctrine of " Vox populi, vox Dei," 
he said : 

" Woe to the country in which political hypocrisy first calls the 
people almighty, then teaches that the voice of the people is divine, 
then pretends to take a mere clamor for the true voice of the people, 
and lastly, gets up the desired clamor." 

This sentence ought to be read in every political caucus. It 
would make an interesting and significant preamble to most of our 
political platforms. It is only when the people speak truth and 
justice that their voice can be called " the voice of God." Our 
faith in the democratic principle rests upon the belief that intelli- 
gent men will see that their highest political good is in liberty, 
regulated by just and equal laws ; and that in the distribution of 
political power it is safe to follow the maxim, " Each for all, and all 
for each," We confront the dangers of the suffrage by the bless- 
ings of universal education. We believe that ihe strength of the 
state is the aggregate strength of its individual citizens ; and that 
the suffrage is the link, that binds in a bond of mutual interest and 
responsibility, the fortunes of the citizen to the fortunes of the state. 
Hence, as popular suffrage is the broadest base ; so, when coupled 
with intelligence and virtue it becomes the strongest, the most en- 
during base on which to build the superstructure of government. 



THE DEMOCRACY CONVICTED OF A REVOLUTIOXARY 

PURPOSE. 

[From a Speech in the House of Representatives, April a6, 1879.] 

Gentlemen, I took upon myself a very grave responsibility in 
the opening of this debate when I quoted the declarations of lead- 
ing members on the other side and said thai the programme was 
revolution and, if not abandoned, would result in the destruction of 
this Government. I declared that you had entered upon a scheme 



22 GENERAL GARFIELD. 

which if persisted in would starve the Government to death. I say 
that I took a great risk when I made this charge against you, as a 
party. I put myself in your power, gentlemen. If I had misconceived 
your purposes and misrepresented your motives, it was in your power 
to prove me a false accuser. It was in your power to ruin me in the 
estimation of fair-minded, patriotic men, by the utterance of one'sen- 
tence. The humblest or the greatest of you could have over- 
whelmed me with shame and confusion in one short sentence. You 
could have said, " We wish to pass our measures of legislation in 
reference to elections, juries, and the use of the army ; and we will, 
if we can do so constitutionally ; but if we cannot get these meas- 
ures in accordance with the Constitution we will pass the appropri- 
ation bills like loyal representatives ; and then go home and appeal 
to the people." 

If any man, speaking for the majority, had made that declaration, 
uttered that sentence, he would have ruined me in the estimation of 
fair-minded men, and set me down as a false accuser and slanderer. 
Forty-five of you have spoken. Forty-five of you have deluged the 
ear of ihis country with defeat ; but that sentence has not been 
spoken by any one of you. On the contrary, by your silence, as 
well as by your afl5rmation, you have made my accusation over- 
whelmingly true. 



A PARTY OF POSITIVE IDEAS. 

[From a Debate with Geo. H. Pendleton, at Springfield, Ohio, Sept. 27, 1877.] 

And now, in looking over this long discussion, let me say that the 
Republican party, though it has made mistakes, has been a party of 
great courage, a party of great faith. It has had positive ideas- 
ideas it was willing to stand up by, and, if need be, die by. It 
believed in the Union ; it believed in the public faith ; it believed in 
a public trust ; it believed in enlarging the borders of liberty ; it 
believed in paying the public obligations, and it believes now in 
sustaining all it has so worthily achieved. It dares appeal to the 
country, as it is deserving of the confidence of the country. It 
dares appeal to the country as against a vacillating and uncertain 
and unwise and in many cases the unpatriotic spirit of the Demo- 
cratic party. 



PARAGRAPHS PROiU SPEECHES. 



23 



THE DEMOCRATIC CREED. 

[From a Speech at London, Ohio, Sept. ig, 1877.] 

There was a time when the Democratic party was a party of 
ideas. No party ever did any good unless it was a party of ideas. 
While it had Ideas the Democratic party prospered. But twenty 
years ago an explosion occurred in its camp. From then until the 
present time it has not been a party of ideas. For twenty years it 
has been a party simply of opposition, of obstruction. Its creed 
may be summed up in one little word of two letters — No! The 
Democratic party for twenty years has said no. It has built nothing, 
but against all progress it has pulled back and snarled its opposition 
No. The Republican party is a party that builds something ; it is a 
party of aggressive ideas ; it believes in the Union and its perpetu- 
ity ; it believes in freedom against slavery ; it believes in the equality 
of all against class ; it believes in the public faith, in the public 
credit, in the payment of the public debt. It is the exponent of all 
great national things that make our country respected and prosper- 
ous. And to all this there has come one grumbling voice — No — from 
the Democracy. I hold myself open 10 debate this assertion with 
any Democratic speaker in Ohio. The Democracy have not in 
twenty years advanced one great national idea of public polity that 
they have held to (or three consecutive years. Like an army build- 
ing a bridge and burning each span behind it, they have builded 
and burned until at last they stand out isolated in the swamp, 
unable to get to either shore. 



THE SAVINGS OF THE PEOPLE. 

[From a Speech in the House of Representatives, Nov. 16, 1877.] 

Gentlemen assail the bondholders of the country as the rich 
men who oppress the poor. Do they know how vast an amount of 
the public securities are held by poor people ? I took occasion, a 
few years since, to ask the officers of a bank in one of the coutitics 
of my district — a rural district — to show me the number of holders 
and amounts held of United States bonds on which they collected 
the interest. The total amount was ij^4Tr),ooo. And how many 
people held them? One hundred and ninety six. Of these, just 
eight men held from $15,000 to $20,000 each ; the other one hun- 
dred and eighty-eight ranged from .$50 up to 1^2500. I found in that 
list, fifteen orphan children and sixty widows, who had a little left 
them from their fathers' or husbands' estates, and had made the 
nation their guardian. And I found one hundred and twenty-one 



24 - GENERAL GAREIELD. 

laborers, mechanics, ministers, men of slender means, who had 
saved their earnings and put them in the hands of the United States 
that they might be safe. And they were the bloated " bondhold- 
ers," against whom so much eloquence is fulminated in this House. 
There is another Avay in which poor men dispose of their money. 
A man says, I can keep my wife and babies from starving while I 
live and have my health ; but if I die they may be compelled to go 
over the hill to the poorhouse ; and, agonized by that thought, he 
saves of his hard earnings enough to takeout and keep alive a small 
life-insurance policy, so that, if he dies, there may be something 
left, provided the insurance company to which he intrusts his money 
is honest enough to keep its pledges. And how many men do you 
think have done that in the United States ? I do not know the 
number for the whole country ; but I do knovv' this, that from a 
late report of the insurance commissioners of the State of New 
York it appears that the companies doing business in that State 
had 774,625 policies in force, and the face value of these policies was 
$1,922,000,000. I find, by looking over the returns, that in my State 
there are 55,000 policies outstanding ; in Pennsylvania, 74,000 ; in 
Maine, 17,000 ; m Maryland, 25,000, and in the State of New York, 
160.000. There are, of course, some rich men insured in these com- 
panies, but the majority are poor people, for the policies do not 
average more than $2200 each. What is done with the assets of 
these companies, which amount to $445,000,000 ? They are loaned 
out. Here again the creditor class is the poor, and the insurance 
companies are the agents of the poor to lend their money for them. 
It would be dishonorable for Congress to legislate either for the 
debtor class or for the creditor class alone. We ought to legislate 
for the whole country. Rut when gentlemen attempt to manufacture 
sentiment against the Resumption act, by saying it will help the rich 
and hurt the poor, they are overwhelmingly answered by the facts. 
Suppose you undo the w^ork that Congress has attempted — to 
resume specie payment — what will result? You will depreciate the 
value of the greenback. Suppose it falls ten cents on the dollar. 
You will have destroyed ten per cent of the value of every deposit 
in the savings-banks, ten per cent of every life-insurance policy and 
fire-insurance policy, of every pension to the soldier, and of every 
day's wages of every laborer in the nation. 



THE DEMOCRATIC PROGRAMME OF COERCING THE 

PRESIDENT. 

[From a Speech in the House of Representatives, March eg, 1S79.] 

OtTR theory of law is free consent. That is the granite founda- 
tion of our whole superstructure. Nothing in this Republic can be 



PARAGRAPHS J ROM SPEECHES. 25 

law without consent — the free consent of the House, the free con- 
sent of the Senate, the free consent of the Excciuivc, or, if lie refuse 
it, the free consent of two tliirds of these bodies. Will anv man 
deny that ? Will any man challenge a line of the statement that 
free consent is the foundation of all our institutions ? And yet the 
prop^ramme announced two weeks ago was that, if the Senate re- 
fused to consent to the demand of the House, tiie Government should 
stop. And the proposition was then, and the programme is now, 
that, although there is not a Senate to be coerced, there is still a 
third independent branch in the legislative power of the Government 
whose consent is to be coerced at the peril of the destruction of 
this Government ; that is, if the President, in the discharge of his 
duty, shall exercise his plain constitutional right to refuse his con- 
sent to this proposed legislation, the Congress will so use its volun- 
tary powers as to destroy the Government. This is the proposition 
v/hich we confront ; and we denounce it as revolution. 

It makes no difference. Mr. Chairman, what the issue is. If it 
were the simplest and most inoffensive proposition in the world, 
yet if you demand, as a measure of coercion, that it shall be adopted 
against the free consent prescribed in the Constitution, every fair- 
minded man in America is bound to resist you as much as though 
his own life depended upon his resistance. 

Let it be understood that I am not arguing the merits of any one 
of the three amendments. I am discussing the proposed method of 
legislation ; and I declare that it is against the Constitution of our 
country. It is revolutionary to the core, and is destructive of the 
fundamental prmciple of American liberty, the free consent of all 
the powers that unite to make laws. 

In opening this debate I challenge all comers to show a single 
instance in our history where this consent has been thus coerced. 
This is the great, the paramount issue which dwarfs all others into 
insignificance. 



EFFECTS OF RESUMPTION. 

[From an Address in Chicago, Jun. 2, 1079.] 

SUCCESSFUI, resumption will greatly aid in bringing into the 
rnurky sky of our politics v/hat the signal service people call 
"clearing weather." It puts an end to a score of controversies 
which have long vexed the public mintl, and wrought mischief to 
business. It ends the angry contention over the difference between 
the money of the bondholder and the money of the plough-holder. 
It relieves enterprising Congressmen of the necessity of introducing 
twenty-five or thirty bills a session to furnish the people with cheap 



26 GENERAL GAR EI ELD. 

money, to prevent gold-gambling, and to make custom duties pay- 
able in greenbacks. It will dismiss to the limbo of things forgotten 
such Utopian schemes as a currency based upon the magic circle of 
interconvertibility of two different forms of irredeemable paper, 
and the schemes of a currency "based on the public faith," and 
secured by " all the resources of the nation" in general, but upon 
no particular part of them. We shall still hear echoes of the old 
conflict, such as " the barbarism and cowardice of gold and silver," 
and the virtues of " fiat money ;" but the theories which gave them 
birth will linger among us like belated ghosts, and soon find rest in 
the political grave of dead issues. All these will take their places 
in history alongside of the resolution of Vansittart, in i8n, that 
" British'paper had not fallen, but gold had risen in value," and the 
declaration of Castlereagh, in the House of Commons, that " the 
money standard is a sense of value in reference to currency as 
compared with commodities," and the opinion of another member, 
who declared that *' the standard is neither gold nor silver, hwlsome- 
tliiuiT set up in the imagination to be regulated by public opinion." 

When we have fully awakened from these vague dreams, public 
opinion will resume its old channels, and the wisdom and experi- 
ence of the fathers of our Constitution will again be acknowledged 
and followed. 

We shall agree, as our fathers did, that the yard-stick shall have 
length, the pound must have weight, and the dollar must have value 
in itself, and that neither length, nor weight, nor value can be 
created by the fiat of law. Congress, relieved of the arduous task 
of regulating and managing all the business of our people, will 
address itself to the humbler but more important work of preserv- 
ing the public peace, and managing wisely the revenues and ex- 
penditures of the Government. Industry will no longer wait for 
the legislature to discover easy roads to sudden wealth, but will 
begin again to rely upon labor and frugality as the only certain road 
to riches. Prosperity, which has long been waiting, is now ready 
to come. If we do not rudely repulse her she will soon revisit our 
people, and will stay until another periodical craze shall drive her 
away. 



THE ABSURDITY OF FIAT MONEY. 

[From a Speech at Flint, Michigan, Oct. 22, 1878.] 

Now. fellow-citizens, to sum up all I have tried to say thus far, 
when you can have more cloth by shortening your yard-stick ; when 
you can have more wheat by reducing the size of your bushel ; when 
you can have more land by changing the figures of your deed, and 



paraCraphs from speeches. 27 

havins: it read " 200" where it read " too ;" when vour dairyman 
can make more butter and cheese by watering his milk — then, and 
not till then, can you make wealth in this country by printing pieces 
of paper and calling them dollars. Why, I met a gentleman on your 
streets to-day, a man hardly past middle age, that told me he was 
here when there were but two log-cabins in this place. And I say 
that this beautiful city, with its beautiful gardens and its circling 
river, with its homes and happiness — I say that all that has been done 
here since the time that man first came, has been done by the hard 
struggling and earnest toil of courageous men, who hav'^e for a gen- 
eration back battled with the wilderness and brought it up to the 
glory of to-day. Well, friends, what fools these people were, to 
speak plainly, to have endured so much when they might have set 
up a printing-press and just printed themselves rich, if this idea of 
fiat money be true. Why, fellow-citizens, do you really believe 
that if Ave should in Washington print pieces of paper saying, " This 
is $1,000,000," and send one to each man, woman, and child in the 
United States, that we should all in fact be rnillionaries the ne.xt 
morning? Now does anybody believe that? It is the wildest hal- 
lucination that ever struck upon a people. It is wholly wild, and 
wholly without foundation. 



A REPLY TO THE DEMOC'RATIC THREAT TO DE- 
STROY THE ARMY. 

[Remarks in the House of Representatives, April 4, 1879.] 

I SAY, if the gentleman from Virginia puts that proposition before 
the American people, we will debate it in the forum of every patriotic 
heart, and will abide the result. If the party which, after eighteen 
years' banishment from power, has come back, as the gentleman 
from Kentucky [Mr. Blackburn] said yesterday, to its " birthright 
of power," or " heritage," as it is recorded in the record of this 
morning, is to signalize its return by striking down the gallant and 
faithful army of the United States, the people of this country will 
not be slow to understand that there are reminiscences of that army 
which these gentlemen would willingly forget, by burying both the 
army and the memories of its great service to the Union in one 
grave. 

We do not seek to revive the unhappy memories of the war ; but 
we are unwilling to see the army perish at the hands of Congress, 
even if its continued existence should occasionally awaken the 
memory of its former glories. 

Now, let it be understood, once for all, that we do not deny, we 



28 GENERAL GARFIELD. 

have never denied your right to make such rules for this House as 
you please. Under those rules, as you 4nake or construe them, 
you may put all your legislation upon these bills as " riders." But 
we say that, whatever your rules may be, you must make or repeal 
a law in accordance with the Constitution, by the triple consent to 
, which I referred the other day. or you must do it by violence. 

Now, as rny friend from Connecticut [Mr. Hawley] well said, if 
you can elect a President and a Congress in iSSo, you have only to 
wait two years, and you have the three consents. You can then, 
without revolution, tear down this statute and all the rest. You can 
follow out the programme which some of your members have sug- 
gested, and tear out one by one the records of the last eighteen 
years. Some of them are glorious with the unquenchable light of 
liberty ; some of them stand as the noblest trophies of freedom. 
With full power in your hands, you can destroy them. But we ask 
you to restrain you rage against them until you have the lawful 
power to smite them down. 



PROTECTION OF THE NATIONAL BALLOT-BOX. 

[From a Speech in the House of Representatives, March sg, 1879.] 

Let it be remembered that the avowed object of this new revolu- 
tion is to destroy all the defences which the nation has placed 
around its ballot-box to guard the fountain of its own life. You say 
that the United States shall not employ even its civil power to keep 
peace at the polls. You say that the marshals shall have no power 
either to arrest rioters or criminals v/ho seek to destroy the freedom 
and purity of the ballot-box. 

I remind you that you have not always shown this great zeal in 
keeping the civil officers of the General Government out of the 
States. Only six years before the war your law authorized marshals 
of the United States to enter all our hamlets and households to hunt 
for fugitives slaves. Not only that, it empowered the marshals to 
summon the posse comitahts, to command all bystanders to join in 
the chase and aid in remanding to eternal bondage the fleeing slave. 
And your Democratic Attorney-General, in his opinion published 
in 1854, declared that the marshal of the United States might sum- 
mon to his aid the whole able-bodied force of his precinct, all by- 
standers, including not only the citizens generally, " but any and 
all organized armed forces, whether militia of the State, or officers, 
soldiers, sailors, and marines of the United States," to join in the 
chase and hunt down the fugitive. Now, gentlemen, if, for the pur- 
pose of making eternal slavery the lot of an American, you could 
send your marshals, summon your posse, and use the armed force 



PARAGRAPHS FROM SPEECHES. 29 

of the United States, with what face or grace can you tell us that 
this Government cannot lawfully employ the same marshals with 
their armed /t'.f.rt- of citizens, to maintain the purity of our own elec- 
tions and keep the peace at or own polls. You have made the 
issue and we have accepted it. In the name of the Constitution and 
on behalf of good government and public justice, we make the 
appeal to our common sovereign. 



THE NEW REBELLION". 

[From a Speech in the House of Representatives, March 29, 1879. "J 

Let it be understood that I am not discussing the merits of this 
law. I have merely turned aside from the line of my argument to 
show the inconsistency of the other side in proposing to stop the 
Government if they cannot force the repeal of a law which they 
themselves made. I am discussing a method of revolution against 
the Constitution now proposed by this House, and to that issue I 
hold gentlemen in this debate, and challenge them to reply. 

And now, Mr. Chairman, I ask the forbearance of gentlemen on 
the other side while I offer a suggestion, which I make with reluc- 
tance. They will bear me witness that I have, in many wavs, 
shown my desire that the wounds of the war should be healed ; 
that the grass which has grown green over the graves of the dead 
of both armies might symbolize the returning spring of friendship 
and peace between citizens who were lately in arms against each 
other. 

But I am compelled by the conduct of the oihor side to refer to a 
chapter of our recent history. The last act of Democratic domina- 
tion in this Capitol, eighteen years ago, was striking and dramatic, 
perhaps heroic. Then the Democratic party said to the Republi- 
cans, "If you elect the man of your choice as President of the 
United States Vv^e will shoot your Government to death ;" but the 
people of this country, refusing to be coerced by threats or violence, 
voted as they pleased, and lawfully elected Abraham Lincoln as 
President of the United Slates. 

Then your leaders, though holding a majority in the other branch 
of Congress, were heroic enough to withdraw'from their seats and 
fling down the gage of mortal battle. We called it rebellion ; but 
we recognized it as courageous and manly to avow your purpose, 
take all the risks, and fight it out in the open field. Notwithstand- 
ing your utmost efforts to destroy it, tlie Government was saved. 
Year by year, since the war ended, those who resisted you have 



30 GENERAL GARFIELD. 

come to believe that you have finally renounced your purpose to 
destroy, and are willing to maintain the Government. In that belief 
you have been permitted to return to power in the two Houses. 

To-day, after eighteen years of defeat, the book of your domina- 
tion is again opened, and your first act awakens every unhappy 
memory, and threatens to destroy the confidence which your pro- 
fessions of patriotism inspired. You turned down a leaf of the his- 
tory that recorded your last act of power in 1861, and you have now 
signalized your return to power by beginning a second chapter at 
the same page, not this time by a heroic act that declares war on 
the battle-field, but you say, if all the legislative powers of the Gov- 
ernment do not consent to let you tear certain laws out of the stat- 
ute-book, you will not shoot our Government to death as you tried 
to do in the first chapter, but you declare that if we do not consent 
against our will, if you cannot coerce an independent branch of this 
Government, against its will to allow you to tear from the statute- 
book some laws put there by the will of the people, you will starve 
the Government to deadi. [Great applause on the Republican side.] 

Between death on the field and death by starvation 1 do not 
know that the American people will see any great dift'erence. The 
end if successfully reached, would be death in either case. Gentle- 
men, you have it in your power to kill this Government ; you have 
it in your power, by withholding these two bills, to smite the nerve- 
centres of our Constitution with the paralysis of death ; and you 
have declared your purpose to do this, if you cannot break down 
Ihat fundamental principle of free consent which, up to this hour, 
has always ruled in the legislation of this Government. 



AN APPEAL TO YOUNG MEN. 

[From a Speech at Cleveland, on the Saturday evening before the Ohio election 

of 1879.] 

Now, fellow-citizens, a word before I leave you, on the very eve 
of the holy day of God — a fit moment to consecrate ourselves finally 
to the great work of next Tuesday morning. 1 see in this great audi- 
ence to-night a great many young men — young men who are about 
to cast their first vote. I want to give you a word of suggestion 
and advice. 1 heard a verj/ brilliant thing said by a boy the other 
day, up in one of our northwestern counties. He said to me, 
" General, 1 have a great mind to vote the Democratic ticket." That 
was not the brilliant thing. I said to him, "Why?" "Why," 
said he, " my father is a Republican, and my brothers are Republi- 
cans, and I am a Republican all over ; but I want to be an inde- 
pendent man, and I don't want anybody to say, * That fellow votes 



PARAGRAPHS FROM SPEECHES. 31 

the Republican ticket just because his dad does,' and I have half a 
mind to vote the Democratic ticket just to prove my indepen- 
dence." I did not like the thing the boy suggested, but 1 did admire 
the spirit of ihe boy that wanted to have some independence of his 
own. 

Now, I tell you, young man, don't vote the Republican ticket 
just because your father votes it. Don't vole the Democratic ticket, 
even, if he does vote it. But let me give you this one word of 
advice, as you are about to pitch your tent in one of the great po- 
litical camps. Your life is lull and buoyant with hope now, and I 
beg you, when you pitch your tent, pitch it among the living and 
not among the dead. If you are at all inclined to pitch it among 
the Democratic people and with that party, let me go with you for 
a moment while we survey the ground wliere I hope you will not 
shortly lie. It is a sad place, young man, for you to put your 
young life into. It is to me far more like a graveyard than like a 
camp for the living. Look at it ! It is billowed all over with the 
graves of dead issues, of buried opinions, of exploded theories, of 
disgraced doctrines. You cannot live in comfort in such a place. 
Why, look here ! Here is a little double mound. 1 look down on 
it and I read, " Sacred to the memory of Squatter Sovereignty and 
the Dred Scott Decision." A million and a half of Democrats voted 
for that, but it has been dead fifteen years— died by the hand of 
Abraham Lincoln, and here it lies. Young man, that is not the 
place for you. 

But look a little further. Here is another monument, a black 

tomb, and .beside it, as our distinguished friend said, there towers 

to the sky a monument of four million pairs of human fetters taken 

from the arms of slaves, and I read on its little headstone this : 

" Sacred to the memory of Human Slavery." For forty years of its 

infamous life the Democratic party taught that it was divine — God's 

institution. They defended it, they stood around it, they followed 

it to its grave as a mourner. But here it lies, dead by the hand of 

Abraham Lincoln ; dead by the power of the Republican party ; 

dead by the justice of Almighty God. Don't camp there, young man. 

But here is another — a little brimstone tomb — and I read across 

its yellow face, in lurid, bloody lines, these words : " Sacred to 

the memory of State Sovereignty and Secession." Twelve millions 

of Democrats mustered around it in arms to keep it alive ; but here 

it lies, shot to death by the million guns of the Republic. Here it 

lies, its shrine burned to ashes under the blazing rafters of the 

burning Confederacy. It is dead ! I would not have you stay in 

there a minute, even in this balmy night air, to look at such a place. 

But just before I leave it I discover a new-made grave, a little 

mound — short. The grass has hardly sprouted over it, and all 

around I see torn pieces of paper with the word " fiat" on them, 



32 GENERAL GARFIELD'S SPEECHES. 

and I look down in curiosity, wondering vvliat the little grave is, 
and 1 read on it : " Sacred to the memory of the Rag Baby ;" 
nursed in the brain of all the fanaticism of the world ; rocked by 
Thomas Ewing, George H. Pendleton, Samuel Gary, and a few 
others throughout the land. But it died on the ist of January, 1879, 
and the one hundred and forty milions of gold that God made, and 
not fiat power, lie upon its little carcass to keep it down forever. 

Oh, young man, come out of that ! That is no place in which to 
put your young life. Come out, and come over into this camp of 
liberty, of order, of law, of justice, of freedom, of all that is glori- 
ous under these nigl.l clars. 

Is there any death here in our camp ? Yes ! yes ! Three hun- 
dred and fifty thousand soldiers, the noblest band that ever trod the 
earth, died to make this camp a camp of glory and of liberty for- 
ever. But there are no dead issues here. There are no dead ideas 
here. Hang out our banner from under the blue sky this night, 
until it shall sweep the green turf under your feet. It hangs over 
our camp. Read away up under the stars the inscription we have 
written on it, lo ! these twenty-five years. 

Twenty-five years ago the Republican party was married to liberty, 
and this is our silver wedding, fellow-citizens. ^ A worthily married 
pair love each other better on the day of their silver wedding than 
on the day of their first espousals ; and we are truer to liberty to- 
day and dearer to God than we were when we spoke our first word 
of liberty. Read away up under the sky across our starry banner 
that first word we uttered twenty-five years ago I What was it ? 
" Slavery shall never extend over another foot of the territory of 
the great West. " Is that dead or alive? Alive, thank God, for- 
evermore ! And truer to-night than it was the hour it was written. 
Then it was a hope, a promise, a purpose. To night it is equal 
with the stars — immortal history and immortal truth. 

Come down the glorious steps of our banner. Every great record 
we have made we have vindicated with our blood and with our 
truth. It sweeps the ground, and it touches the stars. Come here, 
young man, and put in your young life where all is living, and where 
nothing is dead but the heroes that defended it. 1 think these 
young men will do that. 



The foregoing pages are taken from " The Republican Manual 
for 1880 : History, Principles, and Victories of the Republican 
Party, with Biographical Sketches of its Candidates." By E. V. 
Smalley. Published by the American Book Exchange, Tribune 
Building, New York. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



013 763 285 8 



